Automated Testing- The future of end-to-end lifecycle testing!

Disruptions in the 21st century have led to a revolution in the technology ecosystem across various stakeholders namely acquirers, merchants, banks, retailers and financial institutions. The unifying characteristic of these stakeholders is a constant need for change. New platforms, new products, new hardware and new channels are a regular occurrence in the banking and financial sector.

This continuous change has forced most IT teams to complement old-school method of manual testing with tools and techniques in pursuit of testing automation that would enable quicker time to market. But contrary to the needs, the current market has limited options of either procuring multiple commercial tools, customizing open source toolkits & libraries or developing an in-house framework. These options are not only a huge economic burden on the company, but also operationally inefficient and ineffective, making the whole process of testing a cumbersome activity.

Now that we have mentioned the problem that is in hand, the next step is to find a solution. Though easier said than done, the solution is innovation, not just for the namesake but instead innovate to solve complex business problems in the simplest way that meets & exceeds business needs.

The need of the hour is a

Comprehensive one stop testing framework that caters to the end to end automation need

Platform agnostic and a state of the art framework that empower users to automate complex business scenarios effectively and efficiently

Suite equipped with industry standard domain specific libraries and pre-defined functions that can easily be enhanced and propagated with minimal effort

A summary dashboard that provides direct inputs to the technical management team on the cost of quality

Automated testing is an integral portion of the continuous delivery and agile based development which is now standard practice in the industry. Effort expended towards automation is more than rewarding if the right solution is identified and adopted.

Building the right automation suite is a gradual and a steady process. It involves a fair bit of design, development, and testing to get it working optimally. Publish and share execution proofs that are transparent, thereby increasing the visibility of the current and historical artifacts. The key is to have individuals involved in routine activities, who monitor the progress and health of the project. The true mark of success is when the process is simple, adaptable, accessible to the fraternity and most important of all when automation ROI is tangible to all the stakeholders. For success, there need to be solid effort with respect to diligence in keeping the automation suite updated and discipline in prioritizing and addressing failures with immediate effect. There also needs some effort in Investigating and assessing the suites frequently to avoid any misleading figures.

In summary, a combination of end-to-end lifecycle test automation tool along with an experienced team of individuals from the relevant domain remains critical for an efficient implementation of automation testing.